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National Sin must be Expiated by National Calamity. 

What President Lincoln Did for his Country. 

Southern Chivalry, and what the Nation ought to do with it. 



THREE SERMONS 



preached in the 






NORTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 



NEW BEDFORD, MASS., 



Fast Day, April 13, and Sunday, April 1G, 18G5. 



BY ALONZO H. QUINT, 




NEW BEDFORD: 

mercury .job press, 92 union street. 
1865. 






— ^-^ @^ 



f-^l 



National Sin must be Expiated by National Calamity. 

What President Lincoln Did for his Country. 

Southern Chivalry, and what the Nation ought to do with it. 

THREE SEKMONS 

PREACHED IN THE 

NORTH CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 

NEW BEDFORD, MASS., 
Fast Day, April 13, and Sunday, April 16, 1865, 

BY ALONZO H. QUINT^ 




< •*•»• > 



NEW BEDFORD 



^ MERCURY JOB PRESS, 92 UNION STRSET. 

^ 1865, 






New Bedford, April 14, 1865. 
Rev. a. H. Quint: 

Dear Sir, — Having listened with much pleasure and profit to your dis- 
course on the occasion of our annual State Fast, and believing the sentiments 
and principles so explicitly enunciated and enforced, will in their dissemina- 
tion at this juncture in our National life, be productive of mnch good, — in ac- 
cordance with numerously expressed wishes to that end, we respectfully re- 
quest of you a copy for publication, 

And are very truly yours, 

JONA. BOURNE, Jr., ANDREW MACKIE, 

WARREN LADD, A. H. SEABURY, 

MOSES G. THOMAS, OLIVER CROCKER, 

JOS. R. READ, WxM. P. S. CADWELL, 

I. D. HALL, JOS. ARTHUR BEAUVAIS, 

EDMUND RODMAN, CORNELIUS DAVENPORT, 

EDWARD HASKELL, C. B. H. FESSENDEN, 

JOHN HASTINGS, FRED'K HOMER. 



A subsequent request, April 17, included the two sermons preached on the 
Sabbath following the assassination of President Lincoln. 



Messrs. Jonathan Bourne, Jr., and others : 

Dear Sirs, — I have always refused to give any sermons of mine to the 
press, except once, viz., when Sumpter fell. In that case I felt that the crisis 
should overrule personal reluctance. 

So, present circumstances overcome my hesitation. Trusting to your kind 
assurances that they may do good, I place a copy at your disposal, with no 
time to remove the defects, of which no one will be more conscious than my- 
self. Let them do their work, and then be forgotten. 

Very respectfully yours, 

ALONZO H. QUINT. 
New Bedford, Mass., April 18, 1865. 



^ 



I. 



•National Sin must be Expiated by National Calamity. 



Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, 

That her warfare is accomplished, I 

That her iniquity is pardoned, 

For she hath received of the Lord's hand, 

Double for all her sins. — Isaiah xi : 2. 

When a deputation not long since waited upon the head 
of the nation, to present to him the assurance of the sympathy 
and prayers of those whom they represented, they closed with 
an expression of hope that the Lord would be on his side 
and the nations'. " I have not," said the President in his 
reply, " I have not given myself any care whether the Lord 
is on our side ; but I do feel anxious that myself and the 
people should be upon the Lord's side." 

Happy is that nation whose chief ruler is imbued with 
such a pri(iciple; one able to perceive the distinction between 
our asking God to be with us, and our determining to be 
with God; between wishing God to favor a cause devised by 
our own wishes, and making our cause to coincide with 
God's wishes; between a statesmanship which has its origin 
in human speculations and human selfishness, and one which 
takes as a starting point the unerring principles of right and 
justice. 

The two kinds of statesmanship are totally different. Their 
results are equally different. The one, starting in right, is 
successful. " Happy is that people whose God is the Lord." 
The other, starting in selfishness, ends in calamity. 



♦Preached on Fast Day, April 14, 1865. 



I had intended, notwithstanding the character of this day 
as a day of penitence, to congratulate you upon the recent 
glorious victories of our arms. I had proposed to compare 
the present and the past. But yesterday's intimation of the 
President, that he will soon issue his call for a day of 
national thanksgiving, causes me to defer such an expression. 
Wait for that thanksgiving a little longer : you have patiently 
waited four weary years already, and now, every week is a 
week of new triumphs. Our warfare is well nigh accomplished; 
our iniquity is well nigh expiated. The double punishment 
for our sins, is almost closed. Then will I speak comfortably 
to Jerusalem. But before that day comes, let us look once 
more at our eventful illustrations of the truth that national sin 
must have its expiation in national suffering: 

Well nigh accomplished. The sin is nearly " expiated and 
forgiven," — for that is the real meaning of the words. Soon, 
now. The roar of cannon, and the rattle of musketry are soon 
to cease. The sabre and the bayonet shall flash no more. 
The charge of the rider shall end. The bivouac, the camp, 
the march, are soon to be a dream. The battalions shall hear 
no more the hoarse " forward." The shattered and glorious 
banners which we loved, shall droop in legislative halls. The 
mementoes of many a Manassas and Gettysburgh, shall be 
idle but eloquent toys. The grass shall grow green over the 
soldier's grave, and the bitter weeping shall mellow into 
loving sadness. Old comrades shall talk, by their firesides, 
of campaigns gone by, and sons shall love to hear their 
fathers tell, of a winter evening, when the snow is falling, 
and the wind is howling, of shelterless exposure to like storms 
and of exposure to the rattling storm of death. 

That is, if the nation remembers. If justice shall prevail, 
and right be the rule, and God be acknowleged. For what 
formed the battalions, and beggared the arsenals, and blazoned 
the banners, and dug the graves? A nation's sin. Right 
had been forgotten. Integrity had poisoned the state. It 
was a righteous retribution. The iniquity had to be expiated. 

I know that this is often ignored. Few governments 
practice upon it. England acts upon the reverse theory. It 



6 

is the incarnation of selfishness : whose God is its bellyj 
whose glory is in its shame. It has no principle. Tyrannical 
over the weak, fawning upon the strong; a hypocrite in morals; 
the very Pecksniff of nations.* Yet if it be said, England 
prospers — No. The day of reckoning is comings Its knees 
already tremble, and its heart quakes. England is rotten with 
beggary. God's work may be slow, but it is sure. It was, 
in France. Generations rolled by, while the oppressor laughed 
at the oppressed, who cried " how long, O Lord, how long." 
But the day came, and revolutions ended in tyranny, and 
the tyranny rests on bayonets. 

It was in the Convention which framed the Constitution 
of the United States, that the representatives of South 
Carolina, the now frightened and helpless remnant of the 
once haughty incarnation of tyranny, said — " Interest alone 
is the governing principle of nations. Religion and humanity 
have nothing to do with the question"— -that is, of slavery. 

But it was in that Convention, that Mason the grandfathef 
of the now humbled and homeless rebel, said " As nations 
cannot be punished in the next world, they must in this. By 
an inevitable chain of causes and effects. Providence 
punishes national sins by national calamities." 

The latter is true. It is impossible for a nation which acts 
unjustly, to be permanently strong. Its life is in righteousness. 
To sin is to sap the strength of national existence. Especially 
is this so in a government of the people. Public virtue is 
then the soul of public power. As the people are, so will be 
the rulers. And as the spirit of the nation is, so will be its 
vigor; its influence at home, and its respect abroad. This 
is a general fact. The decay of principle in the national life 
is the decay of might. 

Never were the two more distinctly set forth than in the 
words I have quoted from the representatives of Virginia and 
South Carolina. Happy had it been if the Virginia of that 

*If anybody else has been suprised at the course of England, in the 
time of our national troubles, I am sure I have not. I believe now, as I 
did twenty years ago, and no more strongly now than then, that the continued 
prosperity of England, as then and now governed, would be a curse to the 
world. 



day had prevailed. For the Virginia then, was the home of 
that Washington who left his slaves free; of that Jefferson 
who trembled for his country when he thought that God was 
just. While the South Carolina of that day is the South 
Carolina of later days, soulless, reckless, alike devoid of 
honor and of truth. 

But South Carolina then prevailed. And it is easy to see, 
not only the general principle that justice is essential to 
public power, but how the very sins committed, come them- 
selves to be the instruments of punishment. 

I. Our fault was, in the very formation of the government, 
in not placing it on the platform of justice; and that mistake 
was the instrument of its own penalty. 

The majority in that convention were opposed to slavery. 
Some of these had just been fighting for liberty. Yet 
considerations of mere expediency prevailed. South Carolina 
and Georgia demanded the right to send ship to Africa, steal its 
unoffending inhabitants, bring them to America, and consign 
them and their descendants to perpetual slavery. They said 
in explicit language, " No slave trade, no Union." So for 
union, the slave trade was allowed for a generation. South 
Carolina and Georgia demanded a clause for the return of 
fugitives. " No return of fugitives, no Union." So the 
constitution was cursed with that which made us the 
betrayers of a helpless fugitive. They demanded extra 
political power in a proportion to their number of slaves. 
" No such allowance, no Union." So they get their demands. 

Some say that they gave us a kind of equivalent ; we 
then had a price of blood. It was to favor the shipping 
interest of the North. That quieted the conscience. That, 
and to make a union between light and darkness, a covenant 
with hell. 

Men might have seen that such a union had in it a curse. 
They might have known that a government which violated 
the cardinal principles of right could not prosper in the end. 
Well was it said by an eminent statesman, — " when we are 
founding States, all these laws must be brought to the 
standard of the laws of God, must be tried by that standard, 



and must stand or fall by it." But they forgot that. They 
forgot that " He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, he shall 
surely be put to death." They forgot that the " law was 
made for man-stealers." They forgot that " thou shalt not 
return unto his master the servant who is escaped from his 
master; he shall dwell with thee, thou shalt not oppress him." 
They forgot that " God hath made of one blood all the 
nations of the earth." They gathered together all the noble 
things they had ever done for liberty, and trod them under 
their feet. To gain South Carolina and Georgia, they 
forgot the laws of God. 

How well did it work ? When this time of trial came, 
South Carolina was the first to secede, and Georgia the 
second. South Carolina opened the war, and Georgia was 
the first to send re-inforcements in the carnival of treason. 
We gained South Carolina in that first lapse Irom right : 
she gave us four years of such war as the world never saw. 
How do you like it? We gained a shipping interest. It 
was a gain. But in that very thing of temptation came the 
penalty. You men of New Bedford, what think you of 
your burning vessels, of your scattered commerce ? The 
very wealth the fathers sold righteousness for, has lit up the 
ocean with its fires. 

In that departure, we yielded to slavery. In God's 
righteous judgment, he has made that slavery the very 
instrument of our punishment. It made this war. It fired 
the southern hearts. It crazed their minds. It added to 
southern strength. It raised their crops to feed the southern 
armies. It doubled their forces. When we waited weeks in 
front of Yorktown, it had built their works. When we 
were hurled back from the ravine of death, at Fredericksburg, 
it had crowned the heights with lines of defence. When we 
lost our thousands at Donelson, it had, as their General said, 
done the labor, so that he could drill his raw men for the work 
of slaughter. I saw the works at Winchester, which enabled 
Johnston to join Beauregard and win the battle of Bull Run ; 
slaves built them. I saw the lines at Fredericksburg, which 
slaves had built. I saw the forts, redoubts, rifle-pits, and 



8 

breastworks at Resacca. which slaves had built. The slavery 
we had allowed, slaughtered our young men and filled our 
land with widows and orphans. In all of it, God said, the 
sin you agreed to shall be your curse. What were South 
Carolina and Georgia to the everlasting law of God? You 
gained two states but you gained a curse. 

II. The corruption which followed and which was 
admitted into government itself, has worked its legitimate 
result. 

The two principles had come in conflict in the beginning, 
tlight had been yielded. Expediency had conquered. That 
miserable expediency which is the unfailing refuge, when 
a mean or a cowardly thing is to be done. There is a place 
for expediency ; but it is when two things are equally morally 
right; not when one is right and the other is wrong. Admit 
the wrong, because it seems expedient, and you have 
weakened your manliness ; you have vitiated your life. When 
the nation in its very organic paper, acted on expediency — • 
apparent self-interest, that is, — it made that the standard of 
public virtue. It simply said.-^our rule is, do what self 
desires. What apt scholars it found, what multitudes willing 
to apply that to the individual, it is needless to say. What 
corruption in politics, it made. How uselessly the fathers tried 
to stay the tide of wrong. All this it is needless to review. 

In the various compromises was corruption. Moral 
principle was ignored. Doubtless many believed, sincerely, 
that they were doing a moral duty. But multitudes knew 
that at the best it was a violation of right, to preserve the 
trembling union ; and at the most, it was the trading of 
politicians in office and profit; a bid for the presidency here 
and a bid for party power there ; for offices in Washington, 
and customs in New Bedford. The words of true men, were 
disregarded. The warnings of the past were unheeded. 
They triumphed in oppression : they became vain in robbery. 

The nation found its legitimate penalty. I have heard of 
an inhuman father, who with his family was pursued by rave- 
neous wolves. How the sledge was urged faster and faster, but 
the wolves gained. How, to save a part alive, he threw one 



«hild to the wolves. They snapped at it ; they stopped ; they 
devoured it. On again, after this momentary pause ; another 
child ; and the same momentary relief. And yet a third ; 
and alas, a fourth. And at last, the man and his wife ; only 
the driver escaped to tell the tale. So did the nation. It 
remorselessly consigned tract after tract, to the dominion of 
the slave holding wolves ; millions at once to the lash and 
chain. But every gift merely whetted the appetite of the 
devourers, and at last, they laid their teeth on the nation itself. 
Then, in God's mercy, it awoke and it found strength : but 
not, until by the resurrection of liberty, it called back to 
life the children it had foully abandoned; and not until the 
penalty of its successive crimes was mercilessly exacted. 
The very sin which the nation thought had secured peace in 
1789, demanded a new victim in 1820 ; and that, in 1845, and 
that, in 1850, and that found its crowning intamy in 1857, 
when the Supreme Court bowed at last. One yielding of 
principle had demanded another, and the sin was its own 
punishment. 

This corruption was seen in choice of public servants. It 
became rare, and still rarer to find men called into public 
life because the country needed them. Most of them needed 
the country, and its purse. How seldom was one spontaneously 
called for? so seldom that it was a marked case where a man 
of stainless private life, of public virtue, above suspicion, of 
sound mind, was selected by the people to represent them in 
Congress. And that such a man has preserved this honor in the 
atmosphere of Washington, you wondered. You remember 
to what our Congress had degenerated. You remember its 
drunkenness, its pistols, its knives, its bargains, and its 
prizes; its trucklings and its snap of the whip. Until 
« northern dough-faces" was the most suitable epithet which 
could be found. 

And in allowing this corruption, the nation finds its 
punishment. A few bonded slave drivers ruled. They 
dictated laws. They made war and peace. They occupied 
the best chairs. The controlled the foreign policy. And 
the great parties, when a man's conscience stood up for 



10 

what he thought right as to liberty, threw him off, lest the 
southern section of the party should abandon them. Right 
ceased to rule. Wrong was triumphant. The free spirit 
fretted and chafed, but is was helpless. It had taken the 
" old man of the sea" upon its back, just to cross the stream ; 
and it found a permanent master who choked his victim when 
he hesitated to obey. 

This spirit reached its climax at last. Not when the 
course of things silently yielded to such wrong. Not when 
bad men got offices. Not even when the impious maxim 
" our country, right or wrong" was the delirious shout of 
many a crazy thousand. But it did, when politicians scoffed 
at truth, and cried " there is no higher law than that of the 
country ;" and partisans echoed " no higher law ;" and the 
pulpits blasphemely repeated " no higher law." Many men in 
all parties shuddered. I thank God, that however I had chosen 
betwen the two great parties in the country, I said, " this is 
blasphemy. There is a higher law. When conscience is 
sure it cannot obey the laws, let it silently suffer its penalty, 
but let it not disobey God." When Tract Societies came to 
be hopelessly corrupt, and Boards of Missions had commu- 
nicants in their churches, who burnt slaves at the stake ; 
when ministers outraged conscience and truth by apologizing 
for slavery ; when churches were worshipping in the house of 
Baal; then there brooded over our country clouds of divine 
wrath. The air grew heavy. It seemed hard to breathe. 
The blackness grew fearfully. Then the heavy roll of the 
thunder crashed. Then the forked lightning played. Tempests 
howled, and fire struck, and the track ofthe fierce storm 
ploughed furrows of wrath. 

But not until God made our own folly the instrument of 
our punishment. Corruption had placed in offices of trust 
and power, men unfit to exercise government. We found the 
result. When the crazy spirit of rebellion, which the nation 
had itself fostered by compromises, took form, then it found 
convenient to it the powers that were. It wanted arms, and 
treason in the war office sent them to rebel arsenals; it 
wanted the navy scattered, and it had been scattered to the 



11 

ends of the earth. It wanted the army helpless, and treason 
sent it away. It wanted no acts taken to support the laws, 
and imbecility sat in the chair of the executive. It wanted 
helpers, and the public offices were full of traitors. It wanted 
northern sympathies, and northern demagogues said that the 
streets north would run with blood before a man should leave 
them to coerce the rebels. It wanted men to weaken the 
power of the government, and some northern men for four 
years have either kept silent when their country was in the 
time of its sore calamity, when every loyal man, either by 
his voice, his money, or his right arm, came to his country's 
help ; or, not silent were northern men, assaulting the govern- 
ment with abuse, discouraging the efforts of the loyal, active- 
ly sympathizing with rebellion, and so covertly slaughtering 
their brothers in the field. The race called " copperheads," 
traitorous enough to ruin their country, but too cowardly to 
take arms like men and stand with Lee — they were the evi- 
dence of the degradation to which public morality had come 
when it could produce so vile, so mean, so abject, so cowardly 
a being as a "copperhead." Yet they were the inevitable re- 
sult of the national compromises. There are few now. They 
have always been loyal. They wonder that any one thought 
they were not. But the memory of an outraged people will 
not soon forget how, in the terribly gloomy days, in the midst 
of the war, these men did what they dared to do, to weaken 
the hands of the country. If I speak strongly on this, re- 
member that I have seen my comrades in death before a foe 
whom these men were stengthening; remember that I have 
laid those noble men under the sod, and knew when I did it, 
that northern sympathy had nerved the arms that shot the 
bullets. The punishment was inevitable. The wrongs of 
millions cried to heaven for redress. The consenting to evil 
had poisoned the state. 

But God had purposes of mercy. Those purposes were 
worked out, not in saying " you are forgiven," for that would 
not remove the evil ; not in the gentle gray and then the 
twilight, and then ruddy and golden streaks of the rising sun, 
and then calm day; not in gentle dews and showers; but 



13 

night came, heavy, hard, and bleak ; tempest came, shafp^ 
severe, fiery ; earthquake and volcano came ; the skies were 
lighted, but it was with the lurid flame of wrath ; the earth 
was watered, but it was with deluge. 

So God brought us to see the sin. 

And in the progress of this war, we see also the gradual 
return to right. The sin is expiated. But until expiated 
and abandoned, it could not be forgiven. The main features 
as to success, I think, show plainly God's providence. 

We began with a hearty, noble outburst of loyalty. It was 
a kind of blind instinct of love for our flag, that God made 
use of, to keep the heart of the nation steady, and to nerve 
us in many a trying time. The sovereignty of the nation 
was in the flag and that sovereignty we said, shall be preser- 
ved. So it went on, but we never met with settled progress 
until that banner became identified with liberty. 

We cannot connect events too closely. Omniscience only 
can do that. We can see only the broad current. But we can 
see some strange coincidences. The week of that disastrous 
battle of Bull Run, it was sad, but I saw fugitive slaves re- 
turned to their rebel masters that week. The general, who took 
command of our armies then, had proclaimed that he would 
suppress slave revolts "with an iron hand;" it was the pol- 
icy of the government, but he, its instrument, was bafiied 
in every attempt to touch the rebel power. His highest 
day was when he hurled back the fiery invasion at Antietam. 
In the west no important success was had until a General 
was sent to New Orleans, who believed in the rights of man. 
That terribly slaughtering day at Shiloh you remember ; and 
its subsequent blundering campaign, which happened, says a 
witness " from the exclusion of contrabands." Almost all we 
did for nearly two years was to hold our own. God did 
not permit any invasion of us to succeed, but that was all. 

But from the time the proclamation of emancipation was 
issued, the current of affairs changed. We soon made sub- 
stantial progress when those who believed in justice took com- 
mand. It requires no need of a special interposition of 
divine Providence to see what causes and effects could do. 



13 

When generals took advantage of their own faith, they crip- 
pled the enemy in his strongest yet weakest points. The gov- 
ernment had the sympathies of millions of people in the ene- 
my's own land. This was the natural sequence. So, too, is 
the fact, as one who knew every item of foreign affairs told 
me, that the emancipation proclamation was all that preven- 
ted recognition of the slave empire by great foreign powers ; 
they dared not then go against the moral sense of the world. 
But while we can see natural causes at work, it is not pre- 
sumptuous to believe that God looked with favor on a nation 
that had taken the position of justice, He who had said "let 
my people go." The prayers and tears of millions went up to 
Him. He said to us, — pause until you do justice; you shall be 
baffled until you do justice ; you shall strive but you shall not 
advance. "Let my people go." I tell you I would rather have 
the prayers of those bondmen to the Lord of Hosts, on our 
side, than to have a hundred thousand more veterans. Eter- 
nity alone can tell what a power at the throne of God were 
the prayers of the bondman. Only as we recognised his 
claim to manhood, did we advance. 

But then when we said " You are free ;" when we placed 
the musket in his hands, and made him that high type of a 
man — a soldier, we moved forward. The pillar of cloud by 
day and the pillar of fire by night were with us. The flag we 
bore was the symbol of freedom, and we had God's benedic- 
tion. Then it opened the Mississippi river on the birthday of 
the nation ; then that birthday witnessed Lee's rapid flight 
from Gettysburg; when Meade followed him back as he re- 
crossed the river for the last time, it was with the flag of free- 
dom; when Hooker's starred division scaled Lookout, and 
fought above the mountain mists, it was under the flag of 
freedom; when Missionary ridge was swept by the advancing 
line, the old grave of a proslavery mission was won to free- 
dom ; Chattanooga's fastnesses were fortified imprcgnably 
for freedom ; when Sherman assailed Rocky face it was for 
freedom ; when he won the hard lines of Resacca it was 
with freedom ; Dallas and Kenesaw gave way to the advan- 
cing hosts of freedom ; Atlanta fell for freedom ; the adven- 



14 

turous marcli through Georgia — it was the signal of freedom 
to scores of thousands, and the auction block of Savannah is a 
trophy of freedom, before which, in years to come, men will 
wonder that a christian nation ever allowed such infamy; 
when Grant made Virginia a desolation, and sat down at 
Petersburg; when he swept through their works and into 
Richmond ; when the flower of the rebel power surrendered ; 
and when tiie rebel tyrant became a fugitive and a wanderer, 
the nations of the earth know that it was not until the nation- 
al Congress had declared that " slavery " was dead. 

But to reach this point there was double punishment for 
all our sins. If expiation can ever move the pity of God, 
truly we have gained it. Suffering and calamity; burden of 
debt equal to the named value of every slave ; expenditure 
equalling every dollar ever won out of the sweat of the op- 
pressed ; blood in torrents, to which the blood of the lash had 
the provocative; graves; widows, orphans, weeping men and 
women of gray hairs. Thank God that the iniquity is expia- 
ted ; that the sin is forgiven ; that the sun shines again, for it 
had to be borne. 

To-day is the first fast day such as God's has chosen. For 
many a year He said " Is not this the fast that I have chosen, 
to loose the bands of wickedness ; to undo the heavy bur- 
dens; and to let the oppressed go free; and that ye break 
every yoke?" But for many a year we refused to hearken ; 
we were proud and haughty. But since this last annual oc- 
casion, the deed of Congress has said " Lord, we do loose the 
bands of wickedness ; we do undo the heavy burdens ; we 
do let the oppressed go free ; we do break every yoke." This 
is the fast that God has chosen. We are on the Lord's side at 
last. We can humble ourselves for past wrong properly and 
in a right spirit, It was never enough to confess our sins ; 
" Whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." 
God brought us to forsake them. Partly it was because he 
showed us that success would be impossible, and useless if 
possible, so long as we left unharmed the great power which 
exalted itself against God ; but with many it was the convic- 
tion that this sin stood in the way, and even those who felt 



15 

bound by constitutional obligation, rejoiced that that yoke 
the oppressor had himself broken. 

Yet is there no more to do ? God has taught us that na- 
tional sin must be expiated. If we do not forsake all wrong 
the sin remaining will work penalty. There is yet something 
to do; there are men who still persist in maintaining slavery, 
so far as to vote in Legislatures against a constitutional way 
of removing it. Let all such and all who sympathise with 
them, repent. If there is one who justifies slavery, if one 
who does not see that slavery is a sin, not merely a calamity, 
let him repent in sorrow and humility ; let him say, Oh Thou 
" who came to preach deliverance to the captive," have mercy 
on me, for I have forgotten my Master's spirit. — But the 
question is now to be met, how to preserve what we have 
gained, and how shall we reconstruct? I am sorry to see 
any indications of a sentiment that would re-form the South, 
without securing justice. We cannot ignore the manhood 
of the former slave. He is a man ; he must be treated as 
a man ; there is no reason why he should not. The blacks 
of the South are the equals in intelligence and ability, and 
the superiors in uprightness and religion, of the whites of 
the South.* Every word that mentions color should be erased 
from the Statute books. In re-forming State government, no 
distinction of race ought to be allowed for a moment. Man- 
hood, not color, is the only just foundation for government. 
"When re-made states come with organic laws not providing 
for equality in civil rights, the nation should say " No, you 
shall not despise any man ; you do sin against that God who 
made of one blood all the nations of the earth ; you do vio- 
late that declaration also which says 'That all men are created 
free and equal;' you shall stand on simple justice, or you 
shall never enter the Congress of the United States." This 
should the people demand ; this, they should make every offi- 



* In the course of observations, while in the service, I soon became satisfied 
of this truth. After leaving out the exceptional cases of high culture (which 
the blacks are not allowed,) I am sure that the average intellect and thrift 
of the blacks is superior to that of the whites. As to honor, there is no com- 
parison. Slavery has done the character of the whites far more harm than 
it has that of the blacks. 



16 

cial hear ; this, they should, stand fast to, unless they wish 
more of the wrath of God. It is no matter, as to the foun- 
dation of morals, what state government is respected, this or 
that; but it is vital, that the claim of every man to manhood 
shall be recognised. If not, " Then we looked for peace, but 
no good came ; and for a time of health, and behold trouble." 

For God would work. National sin would work national 
calamity. If you neglect our friends, who have guided our 
escaped prisoners from their bondage, who have fed our hun- 
gry soldiers and given them water to drink, who have told 
our generals of the enemy at the risk of life, where is justice ? 
If you disfranchise the only really loyal portion of the South, 
if you leave all power in the hands of the repentant rebels, 
half perjured, and half merely subjugated, where is safety? 
How before they control every State government at the South ? 
How long before they are strong enough to bargain with 
Northern demagogues? How long before you are hampered 
with a keen, persistent, traitorous foe in your Capitol ? It 
needs no prophetic power to see this sure result. 

This dire calamity is not yet ended, unless we have learned 
that the foundation of this struggle was deeper than Acts, or 
Constitution, or even slavery itself, — the question of Equal 
Rights. The lesson of this suffering is not learned, unless 
we have determined to recognise the simple rights of Man- 
hood. Slavery is but an incident ; respect for Manhood is a 
principle. 

If we think we are more richly endowed than some others, 
yet, as we treat the meanest of God's creatures, so will He 
treat us. For, '' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of tlio 
least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." 



II. 



•What President Lincoln Did for his Country. 



Thou shalt view the land before thee; but thou shalt not go thither 
unto the land. — Deuteronomy, xxxii: 52. 

Our bells rang merrily that morning. They waked us, in 
the gray dawn, with their laughing peals. Our flags, in mul- 
titudes, gaily flew out in the breeze. The guns thundered 
the joyful news. Our children shouted in patriotic glee, 
and the old men were children. The rains came that day, 
but it was sunshine. 

But, yesterday morn, in the gray dawn, the saddened bells 
tolled heavily. The flags hung listlessly, in black. The guns 
wait, in grim sorrow, to boom their funeral echo. The very 
children were subdued to quiet, and the old men wept. 
The sun shone, but it was darkness. 

For, a just, a good, and a great man, had passed away. 
The head of the nation, too. The nation's honest, unselfish, 
true, leader had gone ; with his large, warm heart ; his wo- 
manly tenderness; his quiet patience; his long foresight. 
Gone in a way which shocked the nation's heart. 

But turn, for a little time, to the words of the text. They 
were said to Moses. The Moses who had been chosen of 
God to be, after gi-adual preparation, the leader of Israel; who 
had been slow of heart, and diffident of spirit, to undertake 
the momentous work, in view of those severe trials which he 
saw nigh at hand ; the Moses who had led the people out of 
the land of Egypt, and through the Red Sea ; the xMoses who, 

*Preached Sunday morning, April 16, 1865. 



18 

in years of wandering and in oft troubles, had been a wise 
and discreet ruler; the Moses who had succeeded in sup- 
pressing riotous and factious opposition to proper authority; 
the Moses whose faith was trfbd, and stood, in dark days ; 
the Moses who had found bread in the desert, and at whose 
smiting, the waters gushed from the rock; the Moses chosen 
of God to declare His law, and who had talked with God. 
He, when the wanderings were well nigh over, and the prom- 
ised land near, by command of God ascended Mount Nebo, 
to the top of Pisgah, and to him the Lord showed the land, 
and said, " This is the land — I have caused thee to see it 
with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither." So 
there the servant of the Lord died, and the children of Israel 
wept for Moses. 

Our leader saw the promised land, but was never to enter 
it. The sea, desert, the strifes and seditions, were past ; and 
the land of plenty was before the people. But on Pisgah he 
died. 

I am not careful to press the points of resemblance ; much 
less to compare the guidance of God in our case, with the in- 
spiration of the prophet. But these points of resemblance 
touch involuntarily. In the evident hand of God in the 
choice of leader; in the diffidence and meekness; in the 
kindness of heart; in the foresight and judgment; in the 
trials and obstacles ; in the revelation of holy principles ; in 
the final success; and in the untimely fate, — as to personal 
qualities and peculiar experience, no other person in our his- 
tory, to say the least, has so nearly resembled the great 
Hebrew, as our own wise, unpretending, devout. President. 

Because thus cut off was his life unfinished? Who shall 
say that of Moses. With us as with the Hebrew, our leader's 
life was a completed epic. The result was not to be enjoyed 
by him, but his work was done. 

Of the cruel, devilish way in which the President was mur- 
dered, I do not propose to speak now. I must separate the 
themes, if I would not be unfitted by righteous wrath to say 
what I wish this morning. Forget it, for this hour ; and if 
afternoon comes, I hope to then describe the people who 



19 

have done this thing, and tell what I conceive to be the duty 
of the nation as to them. Now let us try to see how poster- 
ity will contrast the day Abraham Lincoln took the charge 
of the government with that on which he left it. 

I. Abraham Lincoln found this government well nigh 
ruined ; against tremendous obstacles, he left it powerful. 

Have you forgotten those dark days of 1860-1 ? How 
treason was boasting itself ? How State after State seced- 
ed? How their vaunts ridiculed northern valor? How the 
bewildered nation gazed at itself benumbed ? How the south 
and hell held jubilee, and the oppressed and heaven mourned ? 
How we asked ourselves painfully, what do our authorities 
mean ? How imbecility sat in the Executive chair, and the 
" Pennsylvania snake" (as Andrew Jackson called him) de- 
clared that the government had no right to coerce rebels ? 
How the London paper rejoiced, " the American bubble has 
burst ? " How foreign powers believed that the great repub- 
lic was dead ? I have not forgotten it. I slept better after- 
wards, on the ground, and under the sound of artillery, than 
I did those wearisome nights. 

To such a government did Abraham Lincoln go. "When 
he paused on the road now and then, as crowds demanded to 
see him, it was to ask their prayers for him, in view of the 
black clouds he saw were soon to burst. He escaped assas- 
sination only by eluding the conspirators. And he took the 
oath of office, guarded by such troops as the old Lieutenant 
General could hastily collect. 

He found his capital city mainly rebel in sentiment. He 
found a third of his country in rebellion. He found no 
army ; the brave little one that had been, had been scattered, 
to fall, most of it, a helpless prey. He found few ships, and 
some of those under rebel guns; the navy had been scattered 
too. He found few arms ; a rebel Secretary had moved 
them south. He found poor credit; it had fallen with the 
honor of the government. He found traitors in every depart- 
ment ; every office full of rebels. He found doubt and dis- 
trust everywhere ; everywhere gloom and fear. 



20 

Before he was well seated in the chair of government, ten 
States were in rebellion. All the southern forts, save two, 
were in the hands of the enemy. The mints, the arsenals, 
the treasuries, southward, were gone. The way from the 
north to the Capital was broken. The troops he called for, 
were refused by some States, and those that first came were 
attacked in the chief city of a State, which full of treachery, 
had not seceded. A new government was inaugurated with 
all pomp, and the Potomac and the Ohio were the virtual 
boundaries of the republic. When one regiment, reaching 
Washington by a circuitous course, entered into the doors of 
the vast capitol, "it seemed," said an eye witness, "as though 
they were gone into a tomb." 

But his heart was not dismayed. They laughed at his 
first call for soldiers. It was not the call we wanted. But 
he knew that a million more were ready, and he was not 
fearful. He was God's chosen instrument. Selected over so 
many public men to whom the nation had looked, — it seems 
to have been because we needed a patient, honest, undis- 
turbed man. He set himself to his duty. Not a great man, 
to look at. An unpretending one; somewhat awkward; 
without the magnetic charm of a personal electricity ; but a 
true, faithful, courageous man, whose hand, when you took 
it, you felt to be the hand of an honest man. He had not the 
scholarly culture of a Davis, but he never perjured himself; 
nor the refinement of a Lee, but he never turned traitor; not 
the eloquence of a Stephens, but he never lied. 

Over the river was a beautiful mansion, which was 
Lee's home, when he deserted his post. From Arlington 
Heights, a rifled piece would throw a shot to the President's 
house ; and Arlington Heights were in rebel power. Five 
miles below, on the Potomac, w^as Alexandria ; you can see 
it down the river, — and there was the rebel flag. A day's 
march off" was Fairfax, and there the rebel forces were gath- 
ering. Down the river to Occoquan, rebel batteries soon 
closed the avenues to the sea. Up the river, were the ar- 
senals of Harper's Ferry ; and rebels held them. In the west, 
you could not go far below St. Louis on the father of waters, 
and Kentucky was trodden by rebel armies. 



21 

Almost beseiged in his capital. But the true man never 
quailed. He relied on the people, and on God. He gathered 
troops. He multiplied armories. He bought and built 
vessels. 

Baffled., Back pour in dismay a routed army from Bull 
Run ; a torrent without shape ; over the Long Bridge, and 
into Washington ; an exultant and triumphant foe at their 
heels. In Missouri, forts fall. And betv^'een the two pointsj 
there is no attempt to advance. The campaign is a failurej 
outwardly. But he never doubts. He gathers more men. 
He makes more guns. He builds more ships. He selects 
new generals. 

There Were gloomy times afterwards. I remember when) 
near Alexandria, with Lee's victorious legions pressing us 
back from the disastrous fields of Cedar Mountain and 
Manassas, and with us the returned army which had been 
baffled on the Peninsula, that a Senator of the United States 
said in our camp, "this War is now only a question of boun« 
daries." So it Was with Abraham Lincoln. But his boun* 
daries included all he had sworn to preserve ; the Canada 
line on the north, and the Gulf on the south ; the Atlantic 
on the east, and the Pacific on the west. His simple minded 
patience swayed Senators. One general fails ? He tries 
another. One naval leader fails ? Another hoists the broad 
pennant. With him it was the question of a nation's life 
and death. 

You who were at home, know little, but imagine much, of 
a soldier's hard fare, and shelterless nights, and daily dangers. 
I have seen something of them. They are severe. But, 
when I have seen the care marked face of the man, before 
whom generals doffed their hats, and the drums ruffled, and 
the battle-scarred banners bowed, I have thought I would 
rather bear the lot of the soldier, than to live with him in the 
nation's mansion house, and sit at his table, — to hear his 
soldiers' reveille every morning and tattoo every night, an- 
swered by the taunting drum-corps of rebel armies on a line 
of a thousand miles. None but a great man could have 
borne it. 



22 

He was perplexed by foreign relations. The great powers 
who had haughtily scoffed at America because of its slavery, 
their governments backed up by whining Christians — be- 
came slavery's allies. How swift they were to give bellig- 
erent rights to slaveholding rebels ! How eager to j)ick flaws 
enough to give them — especially England — some face to 
interfere. Their builders built pirates. Their ports sheltered 
pirates. Their merchants sent goods. In every battle, we 
fought British guns, and British powder ; and British clothing 
the traitors wore, and British shoes were on their feet ; and 
British sympathy cheered their hearts. Their very money, 
British engravers engraved, and British printers printed. For 
all of which thanks be tp God, the day of righteous retribu- 
tion cometh. But the perplexities which our President found, 
were enormous. Fortunately he had called to his aid one 
whose prudence, candor, and sense, interpreted his own. 
Through these difficulties, the President steered. Safely he 
led us through. Sometimes we thought him too prudent ; 
but we were mistaken. He was not timid ; only cautious. 
When deference would have been unmanly, his minister at 
the Court of St. James had authority to say, " if these rams 
leave port, it is war ! " 

He had trials in the loyal states. Party feeling came to be 
high. The first gush of enthusiastic reverence for the flag 
shut down, for a time, the talk of traitors and cowards. But 
that passed off. The times which tried men's souls came. 
Then the faint hearted fell off. Then the old party leaders 
tried to resume power. They deceived some, under specious 
pretences. By and by, calumny, abuse, and insults, were 
thick as snow-flakes of a winter's day. But no word of 
anger escaped his breast at these ! It was in sorrow that he 
said. Father forgive them ; they know not what they do ! 
They were savage, perhaps, most of all, when his darling 
child lay a-dying, and the father walked the floor in anguish 
hour after hour, with all these troubles upon him, — I knew of 
these things then, — and, under the crushing load he used to 
bow before God, and pray in agony. And then calmly turn 
away, and in war office or navy, consider everything his 



23 

country's need demanded, as though no weight bore him down. 
He cast his burden on the Lord, and the Lord sustained him. 
Even when the Empire State led the way, by its vote, in 
seeming disapproval, and it seemed to some as if the people 
were tired of the struggle, he believed that it was not so. 
He saw under the surface, and knew that even misled men 

would reconsider. Riots and burnings in his chief city, 

a Governor who appropriately called the men burning asy- 
lums and killing orphans, "my friends," — and I preached 
and prayed in City Hall Park while the sentries walked past 
and our arms were stacked in lines, and the guns were ready 
to wheel in an instant into the streets of the city, — all those 
riots and murders in opposition to filling our armies, did not 
move him from his course. When timid copperheads merely 
failed to sustain their country ; and bolder copperheads gave 
all their cowardly hearts dare give, their words, against their 
country ; when they complained of the arrests of northern 
traitors, though they knew that if justice were done, the 
whole viperous brood would hang higher than Haman, — the 
calm, well-poised mind of the chief held to its work, to save 
his country, their and your children. He knew whom he 
could trust; the army, — that glorious one whose patient 
endurance is crowned at Richmond; and that other which 
rolled the foe back through Kentucky, through Tennesee, 
over the hills of Chattanooga, through the heart of Georgia, 
and broke the empty shell ; the soldiers, whose burning hearts, 
though sad with change of beloved leaders, often said, — lead 
us against the treacherous men at home ; find us those who 
are helping traitors ; and the bayon'et shall end their treason. 
He knew whom he could trust; the navy, such a gallant 
navy as the world never surpassed. He knew whom he could 
trust; the people, — in their imperial patriotism; even that 
part sometimes warped a little by ill-success, but sure to 
come right again ; all the people, of every party, all except 
the Valladinghams, and the Touceys, whom this country will 
remember, and with them every man who failed that country 
in its time of wo. He knew whom he could trust; God! 
And to God he gave himself and his life. 



24 

We see the results. There were mistakes all along. Wrong 
men were sometimes selected. Unfortunate acts were some- 
times done. Who can wonder ? But we see the result. He 
left his country, for a better, that is, a heavenly. But he left 
it powerful. The voice of faction Was heard only like the dis* 
tant muttering of the ended storm ; or like the scattering and 
sullen shots of a retreating foe when the battle is over. He 
left the nation strong in military array. Its invincible vete» 
rans, when he died, could have dared the world. Its generals 
are the masters of war. Its arsenals are full to bursting. Its 
navies frighten the former mistress of the seas. Its admirals 
are the heroes of the ocean, and its sailors range up to the 
forts and hurl their canister into the very embrasures. Its 
cre'dit is practically unlimited. Its resources are like the 
bread in the desert and the water from the rock. Abroad, the 
nations are aghast at the resurrection of the great democracy. 
He could say, at last, as to harbors and vessels, " with what 
measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again ;" and the 
man who had never taken a backward step in all his career, 
Would have made good his word. He left the American flag 
flying over every one of the old forts, and he had built a mul- 
titude of new ones. New Orleans, Savannah, Charleston, 
Were ours. The capital of the Confederacy he had entered I 
the main army of the rebellion was captured, and the rebel 
President was a fugitive. On that very day in which he fell, 
the same old flag had been flung to the breeze on Sumpter 
which four years before had come down, and the same man 
who had lowered it, had raised it again. 

Such things had he accomplished. Not he alone ; the 
people did it. Wise public men did it. God did it. But 
he was the chosen of God and the people, to lead. That 
people trusted him. They put into his hands such unprece- 
dented powers, in perfect confidence that not a single selfish, 
ambitious, or vindictive motive would ever sully his mind. 
No one even ventured to charge him with corruption. Not 
a particle of illegitimate influence did he attempt to wield. 
He was not a great leader, as such ; not like Jackson, more 
iike Washington; calm, self-poised, a medium between ex- 



35 

tremes, generous, conciliatory, slow sometimes, but faithful, 
persistent, and true ; not a genius, but a truly great man. 
He was not a cipher in his cabinet, as some Presidents have 
been. He consulted them, but he decided for himself. His 
policy was Aw. These qualities God saw we needed; with 
them, he took the government almost ruined ; he left it a 
great power. 

n. Abrahani Lincoln found this country a slave country; 
iie left it free. 

I reminded you, last Tliursday, how this country had al- 
ways been cursed with slavery. I told you then, of the 
haughty supremacy of the slave power. I never believed, 
nor do I now, that there was no slavery in the constitution. 
It seems to me to be there as clearly as legal terms could 
put it there, and proved by the debates of those who made 
that instrument. The Supreme Court has decided that ques- 
tion, too. 

When Abraham Lincoln was chosen President, the people 
«aid, by that choice, that slavery should not be extended. The 
States which loved it might keep it The obligations of the 
constitution we will keep sacred ; the fugitive we will return 
to his master. This was the platform of the party which 
elected him. That party's sympathies were with freedom, 
but the platform was " conservative. " I always doubted the 
legal rightness of even their own plank of freedom, — as to 
the territories; but the Supreme Court could have settled 
that, if a case should come to test any law made in its spirit. 

True, the South was not satisfied. State after State se- 
ceded, on lying pretences, — the slave question being their 
pretext only. But their secession did not make the nation 
free ; for the Constitution still claimed them, and they could 
have come back with new guarantees. Even if they had 
gone entirely, it would not have left us free. For Maryland 
and Delaware remained, and stiJl claimed protection for slave 
property. 

When the new President reached Washington, the flag 
which flew over the Capitol, had its twin flying over the slave 
pen. The flag ! you see it now drooped in sorrow — before 



26 

you. This centre of a soldier's and a patriot's love, — its copy- 
used to mark the slave mart, as much as to say, — and it did 
say it truly, — the United States sanctions this trade in its 
very capital, and in its exclusive district, the nation makes 
special laws to protect it ; a code one which, in its merciless 
provisions, as far as transcends ordinary slave legislation, as 
the Inquisition did the proceedings of a New England court. 
To Henry Wilson belongs the transcendent honor of explor- 
ing, exposing, and crushing it. 

It would be wrong to suppose that the President when he 
went to Washington, had any intention of destroying slavery. 
His party, his platform, forbade it. He was a conservative 
man. He felt bound by law not to interfere. But his merit 
was, that he loved liberty himself. He believed in freedom. 
And it was his purpose to give the government, what it never 
had, a bias to liberty. He was mistaken in the great point. 
Most were mistaken. To give slavery free range within cer- 
tain defined limits, is as wise as to give a prairie fire the right 
to burn within certain limits, and those limits bound by a 
board fence ; as wise as to say to a pestilence in your city, — 
you shall have free range within certain boundaries, and those 
boundaries are marked by a chalk line on the pavement. 
That motto " Freedom national. Slavery sectional," was a 
great step ; but it was wrong in principle. Slavery was either 
national or no-where. If it had a right to live in the States, 
it had a right, I think, to go into those territories which were 
surrendered by those whose local law allowed slavery. The 
true ground was that it had no claim anywhere ; and that it 
was the duty of the government to secure the rights of every 
inhabitant on our soil. Slavery's legal claim was a defiance 
of Almighty God. 

Abraham Lincoln learned well. His heart was always 
right. So, as fast as obstacles were removed, so fast did lib- 
erty advance. He watched the course of events, and went on 
step by step. He tried to have the slaves set free by purchase. 
Thank God, it was not done. Then, slaves made free by the 
progress of arms, should remain free. By and by, the eman- 
cipation proclamation covered all slaves in the rebellious 



27 

states. And at last the great act of Congress did all it could 
do, to extirpate slavery from the whole land. If you think 
that he went too slow, — that it was not until September, 
1862, that his great proclamation came, — remember that he 
had felt bound by law, and that only as the rebel line of con- 
duct freed him from restraint, did he feel at liberty. His 
slowness was honest. Remember, too, how hard it is to edu- 
cate a nation. It is not an easy thing for men to break their 
old political alliances, and throw to the winds their life-long 
dogmas. Many of you have done it ; you deserve praise for 
it. But such a thing takes time, except when some Sumpter- 
like shock startles us out of consistency. Consistency? I don't 
want to be consistent ; I want to be right. If my course has 
been mistaken, I am not ashamed to say so. 

Some of the veterans ot liberty think he was too slow. 
Tt is the day of your triumph ; that you bear the triumph so 
meekly is to your credit. The President's course was a 
medium one. I think he was too cautious. And this illus- 
trates one want in him, I suppose. He did not strike out 
boldly, when the people wanted to be led. The atoms were in 
confusion, waiting for him to crystallize them. A Jackson 
would have placed himself at the head of the legions, and 
said, "this I mean to do; follow me!" And the people 
would have followed. Lacking this element, he did not ex- 
cite enthusiasm ; though he secured respect. He was not a 
brilliant, but a safe leader. But he was like Jackson in 
this, — that when he had decided, no power could move him a 
hair's breadth. The storms of faction raged around him, and 
dashed all over him ; but when the waves fell, he was still 
steady and calm as the rock. 

He did not, therefore, originate the general liberty. It was 
not, at first, in his plan. The praise which belongs to him 
is, that he loved liberty, and that, when he felt the time had 
come, his natural instinct prevailed, and he put it into a de- 
cree. It was God's work ; God's only ; and to God be the 
praise. He was God's chosen instrument, sustained by that 
moral sense of the people, which, under the labor of the 
faithful men of old, came to prevail. He was the Moses, to 



28 

lead God's people through the sea, and out of bondage. 

With such limitations, he did the work. He found thi!^ 
government a slave power; he left it free. Millions of 
shackles were dropped. 

What a glorious memory is his ! The slaves called him 
" father." O, there will be weeping, in many a hut, in the 
cotton field and the rice plantation, in the sugar groves and 
the corn lands, when the tidings of this dastardly act of the 
slave power shall reach them. O, there will be mourning, in 
the sea-islands, at Beaufort, at Roanoke ; and in Lee's old 
home they will wail and cry j for their friend, their father, theif 
Moses, their prophet, is gone. 

There will be rejoicing I In the heart of the arch rebel and 
his traitorous crew ; among the slave drivers and the slave 
sellers ; among the makers of coffles, and the forgers of fet- 
ters, and the traders in whips. 

O, there will be mourning ! Among the down trodden of 
every land, the poor, and the oppressed ; among the lovers of 
enlightened liberty, and the haters of tyranny^ 

There will be rejoicing! Among the despots and the ty- 
rants ; the oppressors and their sycophants ; the robbers and 
plunderers of men ; the hypocrites who will offer pretended 
sympathy, with deceit in their heart. 

The angels will look sadly on ; and there will be jubilee 
in hell. 

So long as #iistory remains, so long will the name of Lin- 
coln go down to posterity linked with the greatest act of jus- 
tice the world has ever seen. 

He is the illustrious martyr for liberty ; the crowning sac- 
rifice. It was slavery's blind rage that made him the victim. 
It was the expiring effort of that system of tyranny, which 
gathered together all its remaining strength, to strike down, 
in one last effort of revenge, the head of the nation. Sic 
semper tyrannis? He a tyrant? That he loved liberty and 
law was his only crime. He was only too mild, too merciful. 

" Thou shalt view the land before thee ; but thou shalt not 
go in thither." 

He had come to his Pisgah. You can see him standing 



29 

upon his mount of vision, and looking into the promised 
land. He feels that the burden which has weighed on him 
for four years, is rolling off. The sacrifices of his country are 
nearly finished. The privations of the faithful armies are 
nearly at an end, and the soldier shall return to wife and child, 
and peaceful pursuits. The artisans of guns and swords shall 
make ploughshares and reapers for fruitful fields. Com- 
merce shall flourish in now shut-up ports. A healed and 
powerful country shall be governed mildly. A generous 
nation shall show its greatness, and forgive. Amnesty shall 
bury the past, and we shall be brethren. Liberty shall every- 
where prevail, and peace shall rule. 

This was his promised land. But thou shalt not go in 
thither. Others shall, but thou shalt be buried on this 
mount. Sitting by your wife's side, in no thought of danger, 
without a moment's warning, — the assassin shall find you. 
On the day when the ruined ramparts of Sumpter receive 
the old flag, emblem of universal sovereignty, there is death. 

It was a sad, an irreparable loss to our country. He, 
whose experience was so important, and in whose hands 
were gathered all the lines of public policy, who had won the 
respect of every power, and the love of his own people, who 
was trusted as no other man can be, — is gone. Hang list- 
lessly, banners over us. Droop, stars and stripes. Wear 
black, churches and homes. For the true-hearted. God-fear- 
ing leader is gone. 

But the vision is yet to be realized. The promised land is 
to be enjoyed. God lives. I see before us, the country uni- 
ted ; not with the suflerance of traitors, — for they, the Canaan- 
ites are to be driven with fire and sword. I see the millions 
of freedmen becoming American citizens, happy and loyal. 
I see a land of growing wealth, in towns and cities and har- 
vest lands. I see the ocean whitened with sails, and the 
harbors forests of masts. I see a flag beloved at home, and 
honored abroad. I see this country the asylum of the op- 
pressed from every land. I see the name of the great repub- 
lic feared by despots as no name has been since Oliver 
Cromwell threatened they should hear the thunder of his 



30 

cannon at the gates of Rome. I see religion flourish ; 
churches multiplied; the tread of him who preacheth glad 
tidings; God's Spirit descending; and the nation, tried and 
purified by suffering, the people of God. This day, which 
many Christians hail as the day when Christ arose, is the 
auspicious omen of this country's resurrection. 

We would he could have seen it. It seems due to his 
faithfulness. But God's will be done. A nation's tears fall 
to the memory of a beloved ruler. A nation's heart throbs 
painfully at his grave. A nation's gratitude cherishes the 
widow and the fatherless. And in that history which will do 
him justice, he will be inscribed, not only as an honest, a 
wise, a devout ruler; but, in the story of the hard trial out 
of which America emerged a great and just nation, his name 
will be linked with its record as its martyred leader in its 
sufferings and its glory. 



III. 



•Southern Chivalry, and what the Nation ought to do 

WITH IT. 



Because ye have said, — 

We have made a covenant with death, 

And with hell are we at agreement ; 

When the overflowing scourge shall pass through. 

Then shall be ye trodden down by it. 

From the time that it goeth forth, it shall take you •, 

For, morning by morning shall it pass over, 

By day and by night. — Isaiah, xxviii; 15, 18, 19. 



You have seen men who have trained tigers. They reclaim, 
they discipline, they conquer their appetite. But, by and by, 
the tiger gets a taste of human blood. From that moment, 
the master is povy^erless. The eyes are the eyes of a tiger. 
The teeth are the teeth of a tiger. The thirst is the thirst of 
a tiger. Beware I Trust him not! He is a tiger.' He was 
a tiger all the time, a quiet tiger; now he has had a taste of 
blood, 

I told you, last Thursday, of the sin of our country. I 
thought it well nigh expiated. I said, " happy is the nation 
whose chief is imbued with such a principle," as to desire to 
be on the Lord's side. But little did we think that the next 
day's night should witness a scene which should shock the 
world. The expiation was not complete. I had to take the 
nation's chosen, beloved need. 

I told you that unless the nation should do justice, there 
would be trouble ; not this trouble, — we did not dream of it ; 
but either future war, or the return of rebels to power in 

*Preached Sunday afternoon, April 16, 1865. 



32 

Southern states. I think that God felt this. 1 think that 
His providence saw that the people were forgetting justice, — 
both to the traitor, in the way of penalty, and to the oppress- 
ed, both black and white. / feared it; and I tried to inter- 
pret to you what I knew you must feel, that the nation was 
in great danger of forgetting to secure what it had bought 
by the blood of its martyrs ; and, in the tide of a too lavish 
generosity, omitting to exterpate the sin. 

Is not God talking to us to-day ? Has He not let this 
strange event come to startle the nation out of its weakness t 
Does He not say there can be no parleying with sin, no hesi- 
tation to do justice ? Does He not appeal to us, not to cher- 
ish cruel revenge, but to feel that it was a tiger with whom 
we thought to live in peace, a tiger fired with blood ? Do 
you want its teeth again at your throat ? • 

This I take to be the providential lesson of the day. And 
believing it to be such, as a christian minister, and as one, 
too, who has seen treason in the time of battle, in the throngs 
of wounded, and in the burial of the dead, as such do I treat 
it. And what I wish to show you, is What Southern chiv- 
alry is, and what the Nation ought to do with it. 

It was long the feeling that a Southern Gentleman was the 
perfection of humanity. He was a noble, generous man, 
above mean and petty acts. He was no Yankee, to love a 
dollar. A kind of patriarchal protector, in his lordly mansion, 
to the attached and happy servants who could not take care 
of themselves. Rather passionate, but that was the natural 
fault of high toned feeling. His honor was proverbial. His 
hospitality was boundless. In government, he took the offi- 
ces, not for money, but because he was educated to states- 
manship. At northern watering places, of a summer, he was 
feted and petted, — the generous, chivalric. Southerner. He 
had a right to look down on "northern mudsills" and "greasy 
mechanics." 

It took time to find out that this was a delusion. That 
he was, with exceptions of course, revengeful, treacherous, 
murderous. That he was a liar and a cheat. That he loved 



L 



33 

money dearly, and wrung it out of the tears of his bondmen. 
That his lordly mansion was, nine times in ten, unfit for a 
sty for northern pigs. That his slaves were chained, and 
whipped, and branded. That his statesmanship was mere 
craft, to get salaries on the one hand, and, on the other to en- 
able him to get and keep more negroes. That he was lazy, 
and selfish, and often stupidly ignorant. Tliat his hospitality 
always wanted pay for the wayfarer's dinner, except when 
his ruling principle, vanity, prevented. 

It took time to learn this. It did, me. I had known some 
honorable Southerners, so far as a slave holder can be honor- 
able ; and I thought they were samples. But I saw the real- 
ity, in Southern lands. 

But we had not really felt all this, even after this war, plot- 
ted by perjurers and felons, and carried on by barbarians. 
And so, to impress it upon our minds, we have had this last, 
this crowning evidence, of what Southern Chivalry is. It is 
to assassinate an unarmed man. It is to enter the room of 
a sick man on lying pretences, and while he lies helpless in 
his bed, plunge a dagger into his throat. 

It was not warfare. Allowing that these people had the 
right to make war, — this was not war. To kill in fight is 
lawful ; to assassinate is murder. An enemy, unresisting, is 
sacred. War, hard as it is, does not justify every means of 
injury. A soldier is an honorable man. 

Nor does war justify mere revenge. When defeat comes, 
it cannot be repaid by useless vengeance ; it is to be accep- 
ted. A deed which would not add a single arm to the rebel 
force, nor weaken the hand of a single loyal soldier, which 
was only the work of hate and spite after remediless defeat, 
is not war. It is barbarism. 

Nor, if revenge was ever to be palliated, could it be in this 
case. It was wreaked on a good, true, man ; his only fault 
that he was observing the oath he had taken. He had never 
been harsh or vindictive. That very evening he had "spoketi 
kindly of Lee and his army." He had just decided to for- 
give Virginia. He was planning a wide amnesty. He would 
not inflict lawful punishment. Then he was murdered. 



34 

But it matters not what manner of man he was. The act 
was the crime, on whomsoever perpetrated. That act shows 
us Southern Chivalry. 

I. Southern Chivalry contains the elements which ensure 
just such deeds as this. I say " Chivalry" and not "slavery," 
because " Chivalry " is the sentiment back of slavery. The 
Slavery is an incident ; the Chivalry is the principle. The 
Slavery does not create, it fosters only, the spirit of the Chiv- 
alry. The Chivalry merely finds Slavery one method of 
showing itself. Slavery is only the evidence of the rotten- 
ness of the Southern spirit. 

To rob is the first characteristic of the Chivalry. The 
Southern Gentleman lives by robbing. His property, when 
he is a slave-master, is a robbery in itself. He makes men 
work without adequate wages. He accumulates out of toil 
he has stolen. 

To rule without law is another characteristic. His own 
passions are, virtually, his only control. Laws themselves 
vicious, seldom enforced when good in any feature, are no 
restraint. He grows up a tyrant. " Every master of slaves," 
said George Mason of Virginia, " is born a petty tyrant." 
He does not, as years go on, belie the old truth that " the 
child is father to the man." Hence, with unrestrained pas- 
sions, licentiousness is inevitable. One has only to glance at 
the color of the depressed race, to see the evidence. Oppres- 
sion is inevitable, too. Blows and cruel punishments are at 
his option. He is answerable to nobody. 

To kill without law, is another prerogative ; or rather, it is 
according to law, to kill lawlessly. With " moderate chas- 
tisement " he could ensure death, and be himself harmless. 

With such rights and such elements of character, it is no 
wonder that the slave-master should carry the disposition he 
has shown into general life. Moral principle was eaten out. 
Slavery, when made legal, poisoned truth. 

When men were taught that it was right to rob blacks, it 
was no great stretch of principle, to rob whites. Nor to vio- 
late treaty obligations, by seizing Cuba ; nor to send pirates 
and robbers mildly called " fillibusters," to Central America. 



35 

Without law, it was not a strange thing to carry pistols and 
bowie-knives; assassinate in houses and streets; lynch men 
who happened to think differently from the Chivalry ; raise 
mobs to violate the obligations of the Constitution in 
Charleston ; inflict barbarous penalties ; kidnap and sell 
free persons. 

I have seen the gashes in the flesh of a slave-girl. Her 
father and her mother were both children of her master. I 
have seen seven hundred escaped fugitives, in one regiment; 
whose scars and injuries, their surgeon told me, and he 
showed me specimens, were beyond description. You have 
heard of the spots where they burned people at the stake. 
It was all too true. You have seen the spot where sat a 
Senator, at his desk in the Senate House ; where there came 
up behind him, a Representative of chivalric South Carolina, 
and beat the defenceless Senator on the head, until the brain 
was feared for. All this was Southern Chivalry. It was 
only carrying into general life, the barbarities, the cruelty, 
the lawlessness of education. 

11. Southern Chivalry has been doing such things all 
through this war. 

It began with perjury. Nothing more totally destitute of 
every sentiment of honor, than the conduct of these men 
while plotting treason, can be found in history. Oaths of 
office were nothing. They who had sworn to defend the 
Constitution continued to hold office to the last moment, so 
as to use the advantages of their official position to pull 
down the government. Senators, Representatives, Cabinet 
Officers, and small officials, with oaths fresh upon their ly- 
ing tongues, were conspirators. Soldiers, educated at the 
expense of the nation, sworn to support the government, 
wearing its uniform, supported by its money, violated every 
oath and every obligation of honor. The Lees, and Magru- 
ders, the old Twiggs, and the Beauregards, were all traitors 
together. It began with stealing. Stealing moneys at Wash- 
ington, at New Orleans, at Savannah ; it was only the ques- 
tion which could steal fastest and most. Stealing vessels, 
where they could find the remnant. Stealing arms, handily 



.36 

placed by a Virginia perjurer, who showed his Chivalry by 
afterwards boasting of it. Stealing forts built and armed by 
the nation. Stealing, even, in their condescention of little- 
ness, mail-bags and pouches. Anything that was " portable 
property" was acceptable. Stealing money honestly due to 
northern creditors for goods furnished. Stealing all they 
could steal. 

That was how they began; Southern Chivalry. 

But they were allowed belligerent rights. How have they 
acted in war ? For war has its rules ; and no decent soldier 
ever violates them. 

In Eastern Tennessee there were multitudes of loyal 
people. They must be put down. So they shot and hung 
unoffending citizens. They led round gray haired men till 
they died of exposure. They seized their property and re- 
duced them to starvation. When they could not find the 
men, they hung the women in front of their homes. That 
was Southern Chivalry. 

In Northern cities are great hotels. Full of women and 
children. Southern leaders plot at home, and Southern emi- 
saries come to the cities. Here is congenial employment. 
It is natural to the men that have raised babies for the mar- 
ket ; and whipped and violated women ; and imprisoned wo- 
men for teaching children to read. Set fire to their hotels ! 
Do it in the night I Half a dozen at once, to make the mur- 
ders surer in the confusion ! Hundreds will perish in the 
flames I That is Southern Chivalry. 

In ambulances are wounded men. The battle is over. 
The wounded are quietly moving on the road. Southern 
riders come along, open the ambulances, and shoot the help- 
less, unresisting captives. That was done at Front Royal. 
It was done in the West. I don't know how many times. 

Near Tallahassee, rails are pulled up. It will destroy a 
train. The cars are seized and burnt. I saw the smoke. 
There are blacks employed on the roa<J. They are taken out 
one side, and shot in cold blood. That is Southern Chivalry. 

There is a fort. After heroic bravery, the garrison yields 
to overwhelming force. Then begins the slaughter. Sur- 



87 

tendered men are butchered. Wounded men are made to 
stand up, to be shot. One is fastened to a floor by nails 
through his clothes; another to the side of a building; and 
burnt to death. The wounded are in tents and huts; and 
the tents and huts are set on fire. Some are burned alive, 
and some of them escaped to tell the tale. The murder of 
more than three hundred unresisting men, is the count of the 
good day's work. That is Southern Chivalry. 

Down South there are prisoners. The captured are sent 
there. First, they are robbed. Then, deliberately the rebel 
power sets itself to destroy them by degrees. They are left 
shelterless, or, if sheltered, in places where they can hardly 
breathe ; and if they go to a hole called window to get air 
they are shot. They are starved. What live, are skeletons; 
and the dead, thus cruelly and purposely murdered are 
counted at more than fifty thousand. That is Southern 
Chivalry.* 

Do you wonder at these things ? The wonder would be 
if these things did not happen. For these men were trained 
to this kind of work, by seven generations of oppressing, — 
just as they trained their blood hounds to chase men. 

III. Southern Chivalry killed the President. 

Possibly there are some few who yet cannot believe that 
this murder was anything more than the frantic idea of a 
single man, or a few men. The Southern leaders would not 
do such a thing! My friends, the Southern leaders have 
been doing such things for four years. It is their nature and 
their practice. The vile rebel at the head, — was he not a 
perjured traitor ? Was he not responsible for the murders 
and starvations, while the hypocrite fasted and worshipped? 
The respectable general at their head, — is he not a traitor, 
and is not that enough to tell his corruption ? 

But look you at the drift. 

Examine the circumstances, the letters, the remarks, atten- 



*Gen. Lee, by virtue of his military authority, had control of this business. 
It was in his power, and it was his duty, to have stopped the fiendish treat- 
ment of prisoners. He did not do it. Jefferson Davis, of course, knew all 
about it, — if he did not plan it. Both are Southern Gentlemen ! 



■3» 



38 

ding this crime. Do they not all point to a plot which had 
its centre in Richmond ? * 

All along the current for four years, you have seen this 
thing cropping out. When the President went to Washing- 
ton four years ago, who does not now know that the plot to 
assassinate him, then laughed at, was a reality, eluded only 
by skill? In Alabama, they openly said that if he reached 
Washington, his life was not worth a week's purchase. In 
Georgia, a reward was offered for his death. In repeated in- 
stances, a Brutus has been demanded to rid them of this ty- 
rant. But a few weeks since, a Richmond paper said an 
event would soon happen which would " startle the world." 
In northern states, even, among certain classes, it has been 
said that he would never be inaugurated. And even a 
northern newspaper, in 1864, distinctly uttered the hope that 
the knife of the assassin might take his life. 

If this particular plot was, ingeniously, ignored by South- 
ern leaders, they cannot ignore the drift and demand of 
Southern feeling. Nor can the South now disclaim a act to 
which, at the least, their constant appeals excited the assas- 
sins. They are responsible, even if, which nobody can se- 
riously believe, the murder was not planned in Richmond, 
for a miixture of English blood and Southern Chivalry to 
execute. 

Would that this spirit was all at the South ! But it is not 
so. In northern towns, in the old Bay State, citizens are 
foundy so mean, so traitorous, so murderous, as to cheer when 
they beai'd that the President was assassinated! Where was 
the spirit of the outraged patriots of such a town, when they 
did not say that upon our soil such miscreants shall not live ? 

I have not spoken, now, of the fact that these men had no 
right to make war ; but only of their violation of all the laws 
of war. Allow them belligerent rights, and their conduct is 
still infamous and barbarous. But I beg you to remember 
that they had no right to make war at all. Every act of the 
war was a crime. 



*When this was said, the circumstances subsequently discovered, which 
would have put this position beyond question, were, of course, unknown; 



89 

The rebellion was wholly wrong. It had not an atom of 
apology. The Constitution was the Supreme law of the 
land. It Was binding, and has been all these years, upon the 
whole country, and upon every man in it. If there had been 
any infraction of justice on the part of administration, there 
was a peaceable Way of deciding it, by a court itself in the 
interest of the South ; and there was a Senate in which the 
Southern interest Was still dominant. But there was no in- 
fraction. It was under Buchanan's administration, and the 
only infraction was in the scoundrelly tyranny which found 
that illustrious tool a ready instrument. A constitutional 
election of a man pledged by himself and his party to non^ 
interference with the legal claims of slaveholding wickedness, 
■was no injustice. Only Southern pride was offended because 
it could no longer make free men beasts of burden. The 
war was unprovoked, and simply a crime. 

The setting up of a pretended government was a crime. 
It had not a shadow of right. It gave to its projectors no 
more legal authority than they had as individuals. It could 
authorize them to do no act which its movers had not a law- 
ful right to do without it ; that is, its authority was wholly 
imaginary. It justified none of them in anything done 
against the constitutional authority. 

Hence, every act done under this treason against the gov- 
ernment, or against citizens, was a crime. There was no 
law to authorize any such act. Every man, doing such an 
act, was a criminal. P^or instance, government has the right 
to take property, under certain restrictions. But citizens 
have not. A citizen Who takes it, is a robber, and his act is 
robbery. Hence, when the rebels confiscated property, they 
were merely robbers. 

Government has a right to destroy, in case of disturbance* 
But citizens have not. Hence, when the rebels burned Cham- 
bersburg, they were guily of arson. 

Government has the right to take life, for crime or in wan 
But citizens have not. Hence, when the rebels have killed 
one of our soldiers, they were murderers, and their act was 
murder. Every battle has been on their part, wholesale mur* 



40 

der ; nothing else, because they had no authority to take life. 

All this depends on the simple principle that their preten-^ 
ded government was illegal, wrong, and without the shado\\f 
of authority. The fact that their act was under the color of 
a pretended law, does not help the matter ; their pretended 
law was a crime. 

Now add to this, that their crime was embodied in treason, 
was made possible by perjury, and was begun in stealing, — ^ 
all to establish the infamous sin of human slavery, — and 
you have the Southern Gentleman. The four years of war 
are four years of robbery and murder by the Southern Gen* 
tleman. All to establish the rights of the Southern Gentle*- 
man, which were to breed babies for a market, trade in help* 
less victims of lust, whip and maim human bodies, and 
starve human souls. 

It was, therefore, only the trained spirit of Southern Chiv* 
airy to add brutalities forbidden by the laws of war, When 
they sent their paroled men from Vicksburg directly into 
other armies, what should they care for the honor of their 
word, if they could defeat us at Chicamauga ? A few lies 
more or less were of no consequence. When they shot 
Union soldiers after a surrender, what did they care, if it 
might wreak vengeance ? A few murders more or less were 
of no consequence. What were rules of honorable warfare 
to men who plotted treason in the Senate chamber ? 

Truly the text which I have chosen is appropriate. They 
have made a covenant with death, and with hell are they at 
agreement. Their customs, their laws, their practices, were 
all of hell. Over that Southen land the genius of hell 
has long brooded. It was written in two hundred years of 
Wronged men ground down by the slave master. It was in 
the cries of the scarred and the crippled. It was in the gory 
backs of men and women. It was in the blinded souls of 
their victims. It was in the ashes of the funeral stake. 

Then it passed into treason, and murder. 

Then it added to the crimes their treason engendered, 
butchered prisoners ; slain women ; fires at night. 



41 

Now it has shown itself in a cold-blooded, deliberate as- 
sassination of the President. 

In all their course, it has, most of all, exhibited itself in its 
blasphemous appeals to Almighty God to defend and bless 
their cause I 

But equally applicable is the second part of this text 
" When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then 
shall ye be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth 
forth, it shall take you. For, morning by morning shall it 
pass over; By day and by night." 

That is God's vengeance. Faithful and true is He that 
promised. The cries and tears of the millions have been 
heard by God. They waited. They cried "is there a God?" 
Generations passed on ; but vengeance came at last. The 
oppressors were crazy. In their pride they rebelled. They 
were their own executioners. Their stupendous crime could 
be reached only by their stupendous folly. " If the north 
fights," said Davis in 1861, " they shall smell Southern pow- 
der and feel Southern steel." Ah, they made good the boast. 
The wrath of God let them pile up their guilt. All the blood 
shed in this war lies at their door. Fearfully has it been re- 
paid. The Southern woman dresses in black. The sons of 
the South lie on every battle field. Its pride — though not 
its venom — is quenched in blood. Their wealth is destroyed. 
Their towns are garrisoned by the once despised African, 
and negro sentinels halt the haughty Southron in Charles- 
ton and Savannah. 

But it is not enough. We would, foolishly, have spared 
them, but they would not. It took this last blow to show 
the tiger, and arouse the overflowing scourge. 

This blow has said to the nation,— Have you forgotten the 
old crimes? Have you forgotten the Senate chamber? Have 
you forgotten then the graves of your slaughtered sons? 
Have you forgotten Tennesee, and Pillow, and Anderson- 
ville ? Have you forgotten Justice ? Did you think kindness 
would tame them ? Have you wanted no security ? 

Come, then. Stand by this bedside. Here is a sick man. 



42 

He has done his country faithful service. This is his house. 
Hark ! there is one at the door. He will come in. There is 
a lie in his mouth. He comes to the bedside. He stabs the 
sick man, in the neck. 

Come, again. Here is your President. His wife is with 
him. He has just let a rebel army go home, whose leaders 
ought to have been hung. He is going to pardon. See ; 
there steals in an assassin. He shoots. The ball enters the 
head. The noble, faithful man is dead. 

Southern Chivalry did it. Did you want this last lesson 
to tell you what Southern Chivalry is ? 

What else does it tell you ? 

It tells you, you have always been too lenient. You 
were too kind. You have played at war. Barbarians respect 
only force. You have not treated them rightly. In the very 
begining, when Baltimore fired on our troops, you should 
have made a street a mile wide through Baltimore. When 
they hung men in Tennessee, you should have hung men in 
Louisiana. When they shot McCook, you should have 
shot Buckner. When they burnt Chambersburg, you should 
have burned Huntsville. When they shot black prisoners at 
Pillow, you should have shot white prisoners in South Caro- 
lina. That is hard? It is war. War is not play ; it is not 
for women ; it is not a lullaby for your children. 

It tells you to be the instrument in God's hand of clean- 
sing the land of its pollution. You were willing to leave 
the freedman without a voice, to the cruelty of the old rebels, 
were you ? You were going to leave the property and life 
of loyal white men to the disposal of the arch traitors, were 
you ? You were going to let those men come back to Con- 
gress, and you would take, in yours, the hand red with your 
brother's blood, would you? The voice of Providence says, 
you must have no fellowship with iniquity. 

It tells you, you must secure the country. There is but one 
way, — let the boys and the ignorantly deluded go ; they will 
learn better by and by ; but for the leaders, Justice ! 
There are practical things to do. 



43 

1. When armies fall into our hands, it should be by un- 
conditional surrender. There should be no terms given which 
give to the leaders the rights of prisoners. It is a false sen- 
timent which thinks these generals are not criminals. They 
are traitors, every one of them. They are murderers all. 
The prison should be their temporary home. The court 
should sit, and the judge preside; the witnesses should ap- 
pear, and tell the tale ; and the halter should say that treason 
is a crime. Rebel judges should be judged, too. Rebel 
statesmen should reap the reward of their plots. Without 
this, you are parleying with treason. You are conniving at 
crime. 

They threaten guerrilla war. Their disbanded soldiers will 
rob and mui»der. Then let a short shrift and a sure cord be 
their instant fate. 

2. Let the land be cleansed of persistent, sullen, rebels and 
households. Say to Southern Chivalry, Go ; for this, our 
lines are open. Carry your perjuries to other shores ; England 
is a good place for you. This land is sick of your presence. 
You are a stench in the nostrils of honest men. Go, Vir- 
ginian discendants of transported convicts. Go, you who 
have lived by oppression and robbery. Never return. Your 
heritage is gone. Return, and the rope awaits your first step 
upon our shores. 

3. The lands of convicted rebels should be taken. Their 
strength was in their possessions. Break up their estates. 
There are Union men by scores of thousands, who have been 
robbed of their all. Repay them from Southern property. 
There are millions of unpaid laborers at the South. Give 
them their arrears of wages. Place them in the lands of 
their birth, as owners. There are soldiers who, deserve well 
pf their country. Give them, each, a tract of land. Endow 
each with the musket he has faithfully borne, and tell the col- 
onies to hold their possessions as they have held their honor 
and their loyalty. The men that have caused this war, — 
leave them landless and penniless, to do what they have 



44 

despised us for doing, — earn an honest living by the sweat 
of the face. 

4. Let the bondmen have their rights. I told you of this 
last Thursday. I tell you again. It has been weighing on 
my mind these many days. Make these loyal men voters. 
It is indispensable to our security. If there are any loyal 
whites in the Gulf states, they ought to be glad of such rein- 
forcements of votes as will forever secure their own safety. 
If there are no loyal whites there, then the blacks are all you 
can re-organize States with. Justice demands it, also. These 
men are our friends. They have been true to the government, 
and they ought to be trusted. They are men, and they are 
entitled to the rights of citizens. Put the power in their 
hands. Make them governors, judges, generals. Have you 
any doubt whether, with arms and ballots in their hands, 
they could hold the land ? The blood which held Hayti 
against the power of the first Napoleon can now hold the 
Carolinas against whipped Southerners. The men of Wagner 
and Olustee are the ones to place in charge of Sumpter, and 
Mobile, and St. Philip. 

5. Christianize that land. They need missionaries. The 
masses have been deceived by a corrupted Gospel. New 
churches are wanted there, which will acknowledge God. 
They need teachers, too, and schools, and civilizing pro- 
cesses. There is no reason to doubt the capacity of the poor 
whites to be elevated to the scale of humanity. They have 
good elements ; they are brave, true to their convictions, and 
patient. They are not the Chivalry. You can make some- 
thing of them, if you begin right and persevere. 

Such things should we look to. Government will answer 
the wish of the people. God's providences are strange. 
They killed the President ; but they failed to kill the one 
who succeeds ; a man trained in Tennessee, and in all the 
horrors of its warfare ; a man from the people, not of the 
Chivalry ; a man who believes in reimbursing the losses of 
loyal men out of the property of the disloyal ; a man who 
advocates Justice \ a man who said to his black fellow 






45 

citizens, when they demanded it, that he would be their 
Moses. 

We will rally around this man. He, when generals said 
Nasv.Ile could not be held, sent the citizens into the trenches, 
and held it, and kept the flag flying. He will defend the flag 
as well now, and will man the ramparts with faithful men. 
Ihe kindly heart is gone; the avenger has come. 

By the graves of our dead comrades, by the scarred battle- 
flags, by the sturdy muskets, by the ashes of dwellings, let 
us swear eternal hatred to Southern Chivalry. In the fear 
of Grod Almighty, let us never pander to treason. Let 
no rebel generals be feted on our soil. Let the land be clean- 
sed. Let the sword and the scaflbld do their righteous work 
Let treason die, that the country may live. By prayer, and 
vote, and our right arm, let us say, treason must perish. And 
that treason may never have a resurrection, let Southern Chiv- 
alry be destroyed, root and bra/ich, twig and leaf. 

In the memories of this day, and because men who have 
violated every law, human and divine, are the enemies of 
C.od I dare, as a Christian minister, to quote the words of 
the Almighty : 

Arise, O God; let Thine enemies be scattered. 

Pour out their blood by the force of the sword. 

Let their children be scattered ; 

Let their wives be widows ; 

Let their men be put to death ; 

Let their young men be i)ut to the sword. 

Deal with them, in the time of Thine anger. 

Wickedness is in their dwelling ; 

Give them according to the wickedness of their endeavors 

^ive them according to the work of their hands. 

Let them be as chaff before the wind. 

Let their way be dark and slippery. 

Let death seize upon them. 



^■. 



LB S '12 



